


I'd Like to Give Up Now

by sapphose



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Post-Episode: s03e21 The Die Is Cast, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphose/pseuds/sapphose
Summary: After Tain's apparent death, Garak struggles with what comes next.Content warning for suicidal thoughts.
Relationships: Elim Garak & Enabran Tain, Elim Garak & Mila Garak
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	I'd Like to Give Up Now

**Author's Note:**

> Going through WIPs I had abandoned and found this, thought it could be posted in its current form, although it's quite a departure from the usual for me.

What do you do with a tool when it is blunted?

Sharpen it.

What do you do with a tool that is irreparably broken?

Discard it.

Garak worries he is broken beyond repair.

It would have been better if he had died with Tain. That would be fittingly poetic, the dutiful son loyally serving his father until the end. (Odo had no sense of poetry.)

Garak should get up out of bed. To do what? His shop is gone, nothing but an empty hull, the floor littered with the scraps and shards and slivers of an empty life.

_To serve Cardassia_ , should be the answer, but it isn’t. Tailoring for Bajorans and Federations does nothing to stabilize or celebrate the Union, Cardassia in her glory, the only aim that matters.

He had held on to the hope of return. But Tain is gone, dead, exploded, gory smithereens in the vacuum of space. Why would anyone call Garak back now? He is a failure, no longer able to serve the purpose he had been meant for his entire life.

He broke when interrogating Odo. And he knows, with the intimacy of experience, that there is no putting a broken interrogator back together.

He could die. He hasn’t managed it yet, but knows it is easy enough to cause in others. Poison  could be quick, slipped into a bottle of kanar for a deservedly maudlin end. He prefers to work without blood. Too much mess.

The trouble is the discovery of the body. Who would miss him? Who would try and search him out? Bashir, most likely.

If he fails or is found too soon, he will be placed in Bashir’s care.

The good doctor does so hate to lose a patient. He went to Tain once to save Garak’s life; what other stupid decisions might he make?

If only one could commit suicide by lying in bed. Even the poison seems like an impossible effort.

_Do your chores, Elim_ , snaps the nasty voice in his head, but what chores? Elim Garak has nothing left to offer, no way left to serve. Tain ensured it.

_So you’re just going to give up, is that it?_

Mila. Mila, who sent him off on that fool’s errand to protect Tain. Mila, who knew she could rely on him to do his duty.

Mila who, according to Tain, had always thought Garak was innocent.

_So dramatic, Elim,_ she would say.  _Service isn’t glamour and glory, like it is in the stories. It’s hard work._

All well and good when there’s a point in the work. What if he has nothing left to do?

_There’s always work to be done. It’s plain laziness to say otherwise._

He wishes he could tell her all he’s feeling, with Tain gone and Cardassia out of his reach, unable to fulfill his purpose. All he has is her imagined response.

_Time to get up, Elim._

All he can do is all he’s ever done.

Endure, and survive.


End file.
